Your FREE-view GT Eye in the Sky part I:
October 18th, 2009 by bourbonstreetUnless you live under a rock, or unless you were living comfortably under a rock on the Moon … well right up until you were disturbed by a rocket landing next to you the other day … you
Sportsmanship 1o1
likely realize that we/VT had more than a few recent MNC rumblings both on TSL.com, in the Commonwealth and Atlantic area media and in the national media for that matter.
Those have now be laid to rest for the 10th consecutive year. That’s the NATT news.
The PATT news is that we are not out of the A.C.C. championship game hunt. We are tied with both Miami and Georgia Tech right now in the critical L column with one L apiece. This tirade has the unfathomable distinction of trailing … of all teams … france; who is as yet unbeaten in A.C.C. play. Then there is the fact that Miami beat Gah.Tech; we/VT beat Miami and GT beat us.
The RATT side is that the Coastal Division water’s are very muddied at the moment. I can see an O&M, orange-n-green, gold-n-blue and even a smallish le` blue-n-orange dye maker painting the surface at this very moment.
We are now finished with the tougher part of our 2009 docket. We are however scathed. We do need this OPEN week like a dead man needs a coffin. Our September to remember expended more than a few mental and physical O&M bullets and that caught up to us on Saturday night in the final 3o minutes down in the ATL. Congrats to Gah.Tech. You guys won this one fair and square. My cyber hats off to you and Coach P.J. who turned VT inside-out in the final 30 minutes of play.
1st Quarter 10:59 remaining:
First offensive play of the game; and what does GT do? Pass. Just like my pre-game tendency film-study averred they would.
1st Quarter 3:55 remaining:
If it were not for bad luck; we had no luck at all on Saturday night. This play is a microcosm of
"I'd rather be lucky than good."
the first 30 minutes in a O&M bubble; as the wide-open T-mobile throw to Boyce is tipped and then intercepted in miraculous fashion.
Among other 1st Quarter unfavorable bounces would be:
- 10:55 remaining GT’s dropped pitch-out to Peoples at the GT 9 yardline; going to Nesbitt’s LEFT just as Phil Martin’s preview said. WAR P-mart!!!
- At 6:45 remaining a near perfect Bowden punt is not fielded properly at the GT 1 yardline resulting in a GT touch-back
- 1:48 remaining and senior N.F.L. early-rounder Kam is in perfect position to stop #18 Allen and his Predator movie haircut inside-out on 4th and 3 to go. Kam ducks his head; does not see what he hits and Allen squirts free for a first down.
- GT with a nearly a 2:1 1st Quarter Time of Possession edge (TOP). File that away for part II of the Eye in the Sky.
- Another by definition unique feature of the first 15 minutes of play was the fact that both teams combined for 0 steals! Never seen that one before folks. I watched every play forth-n-back and forth again, 3-4 times. Nothing. Nadda. Zippo. Zilch. Never seen that before for a given quarter of play; much less in such a pivotal national TV game. Go fig’?
2nd Quarter 14:01 remaining:
Finally we break the seal on the Steals! #75 Nosal eats the GT right-Defensive Tackle up over-top
PEACE-out Surnames!!!
of Josh Oglesby on the pile-up. (note the No-Name jersey’s as well)
2nd Quarter 12:50 remaining:
Real nice stick in the open-field by #40 of GT on the TT scramble. #40 Mr. Burnett however gets his left knee torpedoed by the pursuing #98 on the play. Not a good looking injury; God Bless on that. (big PIC link)
2nd Quarter 11:45 remaining:
Watch #25 Josh Oglesby show you why he is the best pass-blocking Running-Back (Rb) we have on this play. Tip-top blitz recognition and a wonderful pick up on such by Josh.
2nd Quarter 11:43 remaining:
Watch the right-side GT gunner (#8) cheat inwardly towards the LOS on the all-out Punt-Block attempt pre-snap. Now watch nobody for VT block #8. We were real fortunate that the Yellow-Jackets did not snuff this one out. (big PIC link)
2nd Quarter 8:00 remaining:
#51 steals big Serg’ over the pile-up; which is taking a very rare locked and loaded outdoorsman scalp indeed. Somewhere the Rifleman himself one Chuck Connors was not smiling.
2nd Quarter 5:13 remaining:
#58 B.Warren with the biggest whiff of the year since “mighty” Casey stuck-out on the R.Will Inside-Zone run. That nearly got R.Will killed; and just how many times must we call the Inside-Zone play when GT was defensing it rather well indeed?
2nd Quarter 4:43 remaining:
3rd and 2, driving for a take the lead TD; and nobody bothers to block #91 Morgan for GT. Morgan might be the best Defensive End (De) in the whole darn A.C.C., no need to bother blocking him. (big PIC link)
2nd Quarter 4:04 remaining:
Good God did the quasi Middle-Linebacker (MLb) for GT detonate poor #50 Colin Carroll on this FGA by Waldron! This is supposed to be a penalty; though football is indeed a contact sport.
Longfield Management (Lo.FM)®:
Virginia Tech:
+ + + +
- - - -(INT)
neutral
Georgia Tech:
+ + +(TD) + + + +(TD)
- -(penalty) - -(penalty) -(penalty) - - -(penalty) - - | - -(Fumble) -
neutral
As the Yellow Jackets play a Service Academy brand of football (recall 81% running plays and going for it on 4th Down); this week’s Lo.FM and Time To Throw (T3) will be a bit truncated.
Here it comes!
Why? Because neither metric is designed to measure a Wishbone or Option based offense which skews each vital in any outlying manner statistically speaking.
That disclaimer firmly in place, the VT offensive part is worthy of discussion; so we shall focus our efforting on the Hokies who utilize a far more conventional offensive attack. Note that we only had 9 Lo.FM’s on the day. Reads like we are kicking ass and moving the sticks; right? “Not so fast my friends.” We/VT only had 45 offensive plays on the night! Gah.Tech destroyed us in Time of Possession and enjoyed a whopping 70 snaps from scrimmage for the evening. WOW! It is very tough to score enough to win when the opposition enjoys 25 more offensive possessions (or 64% more snaps) than you do folks.
Also note the above use of the pipe key or the “|” above to denote the boundary into second-half possessions for Gah.Tech. 1o negative Lo.FM’s for GT in the first-half; then only 3 Lo.FM’s in the final 3o minute stanza. Some may call that coaching, or halftime adjustments. I call that a vastly greater second-half efficiency in running the Flex-Bone offense due to a staggering and heretofore unheard of 22:28 minutes of second-half TOP in favor of the Yellow-Jackets down in the ATL. If the Gah.Tech offense had been out on the field any longer their legs might have taken root in the Grant Field sod and a whole new generation of GT’s offensive players would have sprung from Mother-Earth in 9 more months.
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1st-Half Tech-bits:
- Nesbitt sure is a strong, hard-running son-of-a-gun. He moved Kam Chancellor forward (of all people) for numerous Yards After Contact (YAC) several times on Saturday night.
Nesbitt is one tough mother
- The Goaline stand to close the 2nd Quarter on which GT gained -1, 1, and 1 yard or 6` for a score really seemed to deflate the entire team. In Boxing we call this “…imposing ones will.” In football sometimes this is called a shift in Big-Mo or momentum. Call it what you will, though do be clear that our defensive play was on a negative slope (or downhill) after this; as even the foredoomed Hindenburg did not quite deflate like this.
- TT sure bought a lot of extra time to throw with his wheels in this game. TT also thew the ball down after the play at least twice by my count (not including full 2nd half film study). This includes a spike along the GT sideline’s late in the game. My word for TT’s expressions and body-language would be: frustrated. Almost crabby at times if you you pardon the home-town geographic pun.
- “Popping”. That’s the sound the air rushing outta shoulder pad’s makes on big plastic to plastic contacts. I did not keep a scratch sheet for this; though I easily heard more GT pads a popping that I did VT’s. i.e. GT out hit us; or brought more “want to” to this ATL Coastal dance.
- GT’s defense guessed correctly all night long. Which is to their defensive coordinators credit. They slanted their DLine perfectly against our Inside-Zone play(s) time and time again. They also blitzed from the Line of Scrimmage (LOS) or from about 4-5 yards off the LOS on twists and loops by their Linebackers (Lb’s). This proved highly effective as we had not seem much of this thus far this season.
More in a few days including Eye in the Sky part II and VT problem and solution analysis.
“LETS GO!”
“HOKIES!”
b’street
(Scroll down for comments on this blog entry)
October 19th, 2009 at 10:15 am
“I easily heard more GT pads a popping that I did VT’s. i.e. GT out hit us; or brought more “want to” to this ATL Coastal dance.”
Strategy, breaks, game-planning, adjustments and execution aside, I find this to be the most disappointing aspect of this loss. (This is not an emotional statement; this comes after letting the game simmer a couple days.) GT seemed to want it more from the get-go. With so much on the line, I didn’t see a VT team that was ready for a slobber-knocker. Defensively (early), yes; offensively, no.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Don’t know why either Skipper.
I had really solid practice reports all week long.
Which really surprised me on Saturday night.
Go fig’???
b’street
October 19th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
The “want to” vs GT is something I brought up on the football board after the BAMA loss and got railroaded for it. I, along with some others, knew that GT would want this game more than us because they felt like they gave the game to us last year. To top it all off it was their homecoming. It was going to be a tough game for us no matter what.
Then you throw in the TOP. They had the ball twice as long as we did …. Anyway I’ll stop there. B and Will you guys are better at this than I am.
Yeah the “want to”.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
“God, they creamed us! But we’re not out of action yet.
Our landing strip’s still operational.”
October 20th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Yeah, this mental thing is very puzzling. I couldn’t help but wonder if it is a “Will to Win” issue or is it that we (Staff, players…everyone) just never seem to handle the fact that all the stars suddenly start to align at times for us. I mean, it’s the times when even the fickle national media starts to sit up and take notice, that we have our hardest fall. And what’s it about ATL? Dear God, may we never have to play here again…Geeez!!!! Except for that famous Peach Bowl…I just don’t know what it is.
What do we have to do…I mean from Frank on down, to suddenly feel comfortable as a unit, sitting at the table with the” big boys”, and not wetting our pants. I LOVE ‘em all, from Frank on down to the trainers, but this aspect is so darn frustrating. And I dismiss, categorically, any of those that argue that “Our” Tech is isolated, small town, Yada, Yada. Bravo Siera!!!
Thanks for the first installment…love ya man!
October 20th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Yah; we do not travel well to the ATL. Kinda like playing WWII in the Philippines (at least to start).
It has been my wonderment for years; … regarding just how far we are Talent wise from the big-boys?
Could our recruiting be a tad overrated of late?
Tough to hit Toyko flying say a P-39 from anywhere.
b’street
October 20th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I’m stepping way out of my “geographic region of operations” now, but I don’t buy that theory; certainly not compared to GT. I don’t believe for a moment, that those folks have garnered any significant advantage over us in terms of recruiting. We may not have the “regional glitz” that FSU or UM have, but will put our crop of kids in any class that they are put in too. In fact, I view ours as a measurable, step above GT.
Nope, I think Sir, it’s some kind of mental block or fear that creeps into the mind-set of our organization whenever the curtain begins to rise on a really “Big Shoe”. (You’re prob more than capable of remembering “ED”) Anyway, the same “Outta- Whack” trance that comes over the whole “Fleet”, paralyzes everything from preparation, to play calling. (Last year’s OB being the weird exception) For that, we actually prepared and executed as if it were a “MUST WIN” scenario. That kind of prep went into this years first MAJOR tests, but even Bud was quoted as saying he was pulling his hair out before the DOOK game; “inventing adversity”…..WHAAATTTTTT do you say??? A championship-minded team does not have to INVENT FREAKING ADVERSITY!!! Focus and put the weapons on target !!!
I kept telling you last week that I had a bad feeling about this past Saturday coming. I saw this as big a “Must Win” game as NEB, MIA or BC, because in winning this game, we didn’t have to rely on falling in the back door of the ACCCG ; keeping our legs and fingers and toes crossed, that someone else loses so we can still be in the hunt. The further we climb in the polls, the more nervous I get EVERY time. We just don’t know how to handle the seat at the table with the “Big Boys”. Oh my, we’re #4 in the nation!!!!….”Roll out Tom…Roll Out!!!”
Again, I’m out of my “Type Rating”, but this is the type of game that you have to come out with the mind-set of victory, no matter how jazzed the other team is about beating you. I think, you and quite a few others have pointed out the fact that we didn’t come out in the first half and play with the intensity, execution, play calling savvy …..whatever necessary to counter GT’s. The staff and players KNEW that GT would be jazzed to kick our arses. What happened…Mentally??
How do we cleanse the Hokie mind and calm the spirit when cruising at such “High Altitudes”. For these answers, I turn to you, WS, CC, RH and the rest of the staff. Forgive my length; a little cathartic rant, Sir.